In a previous post I mentioned that I am fortunate enough to be heading to my first VMworld, and I also highlighted what I was hoping to gain from the experience. With only a couple of days until the conference kicks off, I thought I would put together a list of some of the essential things to pack for my trip. Chargers, batteries, cables, etc. - Whether you are at the airport, in a conference room, or maybe even in your hotel room, there never seems to be enough electrical outlets. If you are really unlucky you might think you found an outlet only to discover it’s a Electrical outlet sticker. I opted to invest in a portable power bar as I would I use it on this trip and there have been plenty of times when I needed one offsite. The nice thing about this port bar is that it has three traditional outlets, along with two USB slots. No more carrying around multiple adapters or swapping out USB cables on the charging block. I’m also expecting it to become a bit of a socializing tool when folks see me plug it in. Computing device - I have a ThinkPad X220 that I love; it is a bit older, but it is light (for a laptop) and has a good battery life. When you factor in the charging block though, it is definitely heavier than what I want. I was thinking about bringing my iPad which has a keyboard, but it still has some weight to it and it just isn’t as functional as my laptop (I would use VMware Horizon View if I had to connect back to the office, but it’s still not great on the iPad). Luckily I have a Microsoft Surface 3 available for the duration of my trip. I haven’t used it heavily yet, but so far I love it. Its weight is comparable to my iPad with the Bluetooth keyboard, it runs full-fledged Windows, and the battery on it is great. Is it a full laptop replacement? *Maybe* with all the right accessories (docking station, gigabit adapter, video out, etc.), but as something to travel with I don’t think I could do better. I plan on using downtime on the flight to update some documentation (there’s always plenty of that to do). Clothing / footwear – Be sure to review the weather. Yes, San Francisco is in California, but it isn’t necessarily scorching hot. Looking at the weather for the duration of the conference it looks it is going to be cooler than up here (Ontario, Canada) during the day, and cooling down at night. I’ll likely be fine with some long sleeves for the cooler evenings, but I’m going to bring a light jacket as well. Also, footwear - do not bring new shoes. Rather bring comfortable shoes that are already broken in. There is a ton of walking to do and you don’t want to end up with blisters by the end of the first day. US based SIM card - Roaming rates in Canada for US travel is ridiculous. For example, for 50 minutes of voice / unlimited texting / and 100 MB of data, I would be looking at $40. Instead I got my phone unlocked for about $30 and I signed up for Ting - they have tiered plans for texting, voice, and data, and they just charge for what you use. I’ll setup call forwarding from my existing number to the new number, swap out SIM card, and be good to go. Travel Documents / Itinerary - In my case I’ll need my passport, airline info, hotel info, party invites, and likely a map of the various areas (hotel, Mosconne, vendor parties, etc.). I have a folder in my inbox where I have been tossing this stuff, but I also started putting it in OneNote so that I can just pull up what I need on my phone quickly instead of wading through email. Another benefit is that I can add whatever I need in there (i.e. a screen capture of a map, links to relevant info, etc.). Which leads me to my last point. Know your route - At least have some idea of where you are going (hotel, convention center, vendor parties, etc.) and how you will get there. San Francisco’s public transit system (known as BART) services a fairly wide area and might be a good option depending on where you are going. Other options are traditional taxis, and of course, Uber. I have never used Uber, but I have setup an account a head of time so if / when the time comes that I need a lift I won’t be stuck filling out details before I can book anything. I’m hoping for a smooth productive trip, and hopefully all of this planning will pay off. If you see me at VMworld, be sure to say hi. I always enjoy talking to like-minded IT folks. ...

This year I was lucky enough to get the go ahead for VMWorld 2015 and as this will be my first VMWorld, and I am quite excited about it. I have been reading a lot of blogs (old and new) with regards to what to expect while I am there. Something tells me that no matter how much prepping I do, it still won’t be enough. There are a few things that I do hope to get out of the visit though (aside from endless marketing emails from vendors): ...

A little while back I ran into an issue where I was trying to get a new certificate to work on a Windows XP (full patched) box, but for the life of me it just would not work. I spent a lot of time going through and checking the usual suspects (typo with the name, valid dates, certificate chain, etc.) and I finally came across these two interesting links regarding Windows XP and SHA2: ...

Some interesting news has come out of VMware recently: VAAI (vStorage API for Array Integration) which was recently limited to the Enterprise and Enterprise Plus editions of vSphere, is now available in vSphere Standard Edition. If you aren’t familiar with VAAI, in a nutshell it is an API that offloads a lot of IO heaving tasks to the storage device (assuming the device supports it). A good example would be cloning a VM. Without VAAI, vSphere would contact the ESXi server, examine the VM, read a few blocks from the storage device, then write a few blocks to the storage device, and repeat until done. This had a lot of overhead. ...

I ran across an odd issue this morning whilst doing some maintenance. I pushed out a new vendor patch to one of our ESXi 5.5U2 hosts, but after it came back up it would not reconnect to vSphere. Luckily I have a DRAC on this machine, so I was able to pull up the console. First thing I tried was restarting the management network … no dice. Hmmm, OK, let’s restart the management agents, although that is odd since it literally just booted. When that didn’t work, I gave the machine another reboot as I was running out of options. Hmmm, still nothing … this isn’t looking good. ...

Let me preface this post with this: I currently hold a handful of certifications from SNIA, CompTIA, Microsoft, and VMware (and possibly some others that I may have forgotten). I was listening to the newest SysAdministrivia podcast which briefly touched on the topic of certifications and whether they have any value. It seems that the common consensus is that they do not hold value and are a waste of money. Although I can definitely appreciate that and respect that opinion, I also disagree with it to some extent. ...

I’ve recently been working with quite a few vendors as we are in the process of doing a decent size (for us) infrastructure upgrade. We finally have it narrowed down to two solutions, but we can’t decide which one is the better fit. A large part of the indecision comes from the fact that we don’t know how these things work in real-world conditions vs. what the marketing material claims. ...